


Do You Think I'm Joking?

by SnowWight



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-07-12 11:39:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 20,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7101706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowWight/pseuds/SnowWight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The game has been won, and now John and Roxy are coming to terms with life After.  And what better way to do that then going on a family camping trip?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. John

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! I hope you enjoy this. I'll try to post at least every day, or every other day, until the work finishes.

It’s difficult, you think. Loneliness. 

In the new universe, in the new place, the trees stretch on forever. You’ve never seen these many trees, not even when you and your dad would go camping. And stay in the woods for days and days and then you’d have to use the bathroom in the woods even though you felt like everything was watching you pee. 

In this new universe, though, this new place, it doesn’t feel like anything’s watching. There are hardly any bugs buzzing, where you ended up, and the few wild animals you all have spotted have run away. It’s a place that feels abandoned, not a place that feels new again. 

Of course, none of you have ventured much farther than your valley and your glittering new city. At least, not without Jade. The fear of being lost in the forest with no way back again is something that eats at all of you, you think. It certainly eats at you. You prefer to hang out above the city, somewhere near the top of the tower Rose designed for the 16 of you, and watch everyone below you. 

It’s not lonely up here. The wind never stops talking. 

And sometimes you can hear what people are talking about. The wind takes their conversations and propels them up, up, up the side of the tower. It’s fun. You feel like sort of an asshole and sort of like a voyeur at dinner, but it’s fun in the moment. 

You let yourself fall, incorporeal for a moment, and spread out just as you hit the ground. Pulling yourself together, you let your feet touch the ground. You’ve lost your shoes somewhere, and it’s not like you need them anymore. The small stones Rose paved the city with bite into the soles of your feet. 

If you’d had to stay out there, in that empty and dying universe by yourself, you don’t know what you would have done. You feel like you probably would have withered away and let yourself just get blown to shreds. Let all your pieces dance and whisper through the empty spaces between stars. Even the word loneliness is difficult. 

The tower that Rose built for all of you is huge, stretching up 12 stories. She used mostly you and Jade and Prospeterian labor, and you’re still not 100% sure how she got all the glass in all the windows, but you think it looks amazing. The tower hardly looks like it exists, like it’s just a reflection of everything around it. The rest of Can Town takes up the rest of the valley, small half-buried bunkers with warm lights and paths winding through them. You wouldn’t have minded living in one of those, but Rose insisted that all 16 of you live together. 

“It will be fun. And, I feel like if we all live in a cooperating living system, we can keep an eye on each other and make decisions more effectively and comprehensively. Okay?” There wasn’t really anything you could use to argue against her, so they’d all just sort of moved in. You move through the glass doors and into the lobby. It’s almost as though Rose was expecting this tower to house not only all of you, but another group of people as well. Like she was expecting more than your sessions. 

The tower is quiet. 

It smells of loneliness and disinfectant. 

The first three stories are what you would expect from a typical apartment, aside from the fact that no one really occupies the rooms. Jade has a room full of dogs on the first floor, you think, and you know Kanaya has a workshop somewhere around here. And you’re pretty sure Karkat was, at one point, trying to get someone to install a home theater, but you don’t think that ever happened. If he had got it, he wouldn’t have let anyone watch anything other than shitty romcoms. Not like your way more sophisticated action flicks. 

And then, up the grand set of stairs in the back of the lobby and you’re up in the courtyard. 

The courtyard is probably your most favorite place. 

It stretches up, up, up, eight stories high. All open space, carved out from the inside of the tower. There’s plants and stuff around the bottom, and some walkways and a little platform so people can stand up there and yell about shit to their heart’s content, and then above that there are bridges. Spiderwebs of bridges, all above your head. You think that Rose probably came up with this place just for you. 

You leap and soar, your shirt billowing up under your armpits momentarily before coming back down to cover your stomach. Your room is at the top, right underneath the glass roof. Right up on top, watching over everybody. 

You don’t think you’re lonely, you just know you have the potential to be, and that frightens you. You think it would be easy, to get lonely in a place as small as this, and never figure out how to become not-lonely again. Like getting lost in the woods and never coming home. Sort of aimlessly wandering just out of sight of what you’re trying to get back to. 

Your room is pretty bare, but you don’t mind. Jade painted a giant wind mural over your bed, and you’ve got an extra hammocking hanging up in the rafters. It’s sort of like a loft room, big and airy. What you would have wanted if you’d stayed on Earth and gotten a college degree and a job and a house. Except for all the clothes in the corner. You feel like an adult wouldn’t have that much dirty laundry lying around. 

You throw yourself down on the bed. 

It’s your day off. All of you have some sort of complicated workweek, determined by a lottery and a drawing and then something to do with color-coded popsicle sticks. Pumpkins in the greenhouse, the real food elsewhere, house maintenance, cleaning the bathroom, studying the solar system you happened to plop down in, local exploration, cataloging of local flora and fauna, plumbing, cooking food. Running your own little corner of the universe isn’t as easy as the stories would have you believe. 

Just thinking about it makes you want to go to sleep. 

She wakes you up by knocking softly on the door. You always know who she is. Her hand falls shorter on the doorframe than anyone else’s. And then she just comes in, because she knows she’s welcome. 

Out of everyone, you think that Calliope has drawn the shortest straw. And not just in the physical stature. She’s wearing some sundress Kanaya has sewn for her, all flowers and flounces and her knobby green knees just sticking out at the bottom. You pat the bed next to you, and she climbs on up. You don’t think you were this serious when you were eight years old. 

“What’s eating you up, Callie-oh?” You ask her and run a hand down the front of her smooth face. 

“Nothing.” Her voice is quiet and sort of raspy. “I just wanted to say hi to you.”

You smile. “Hi-oh, Callie-oh.”

“John,” she groans and rolls her eyes. “That’s not even a joke. That’s not even funny.” 

You laugh, and she falls back into your pillows. “You should put some pictures up here,” she says, “so you can look at them when you’re going to bed at night?”

“Oh yeah? Pictures of what?” 

“Me,” she does that little pose, where her fingers are under her chin, and her head is tilted a little. Roxy does that when she’s trying to be cute. “So you remember the sunshine in your life.”

You laugh. You’re not sure when Callie started looking to you like you were her older brother, but you don’t mind it. Siblings are one of the only good things you got out of this mess. “How can I forget, when you’re always up here. Come on, tell me what’s the matter.”

“It’s just that--!” She sits up, bracing herself against her elbows. “Rose treats me like I’m so young all the time. I don’t get to go on explorations with Jake, I don’t get to do anything important and big. I just stay around here and weed.”

“You’re eight, and--”

“I know! But I’ve done more stuff in my life than you have ever done in all of yours. I am practically grown up, okay.” Her mouth turns down a little in the corners, and her teeth stick out a bit more. 

“I know, but she loves you and she wants to keep you safe. When we were your age we all had to stay in the same area and do unimportant stuff, but you’ll grow up, okay? I promise.” You sit up too, so you can look her in the eyes. “Do you want to come with me to alchemize a camera so we can get some pictures for my wall?” 

“You can’t distract me.” She crosses her arms over her chest and glowers, the bright yellow flowers splashed across her torso totally asynchronous with the anger across her face. 

You bite your bottom lip to keep yourself from laughing. “I wasn’t trying to, dear. Come on. It’ll be fun, I promise.”


	2. Roxy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everybody! I hope you enjoy this, as usual :)

“They’re right there. Just go talk to him.” Jane is pointing across the garden at someone, and at first you can’t tell who it is because of the sun, but you realize it’s her brother, because he’s tall and his hair. He’s walking with Calliope, sort of bent over towards her. She’s holding something in her hands, something slightly on the bigger side and rectangular. 

 

“No! Jane. No. This is not how this works Jane.”

“You just told me, like, eight seconds ago how nice you thought his face was.”

“And I do think his face is nice. I do. I am the leader of all people who think that John’s face is nice. But. I will not be telling him any time soon, and that is final.” You brush dirt off a carrot like that’s something worth doing. “That’s not how it works.” 

“How is this not how it works?” Janey puts her hand on her hip and looks at you, her eyebrows raised pointedly over her glasses. “You tell him that you think he’s cute, and then the two of you go on a hike, and then you date. Or whatever. I don’t know.” She shifts the basket on her hip. 

“Jane, just--” you run your hand through your hair. “No.”

She laughs. “If you say so. John!” She waves over her head, and you just want to die. Just want to die. This is why you can’t have nice things. “Callie! Come here, and take a picture of the garden!”

John lopes accordingly over and Callie follows behind him. The two of them are so absolutely adorable, you sometimes feel like your heart is going to fall out of your chest. She’s carrying a camera, you can tell now, one of those old big ones that spits out the picture after you take it. 

“The carrots,” Jane says, holding out the basket. “So I can frame it and hang it up in the kitchen.” 

Callie exclaims happily and starts taking pictures of the carrots. John watches her for a second and then shakes his head, reaching over to kiss Jane on her forehead. 

“Hey Janey,” he says. You like how his voice is really low, and how he’s always just so fucking kind. You look away so he won’t catch you staring and also blushing because those are things you sometimes do but wouldn’t ever admit to it. 

“Sup Rox?” He touches your shoulder so you have to look at him and he’s just staring at you all concerned. 

“Food,” you say, and you sort of heft your basket up. That was fucking stupid. You could have said anything. You could have said anything witty. You’re the wittiest person you know, but no. Food.

“Food,” he nods in agreement. “If I were going to get Jake and Jade to take us out camping, would you ladies want to come?” 

“I’m going,” Callie says, still taking pictures. She turns the camera to you and you make a face as her finger comes down and the flash goes off, a small sun in small hands. “We’re going to find a lake, and then we’re going to swim in it.” 

John laughs, and takes a handful of vegetables out of Jane’s basket. She slaps at his hand, but doesn’t do anything. The Harlybertcrocklishes look more similar than your own family does, you think. All four of them have that same, wild hair and those big lips. Noses that come out at an odd angle from the rest of their faces. Janey is their one outlier, smaller and made of curves instead of angles. All of them have the same laugh, too, the same smile that changes all of their faces. 

“We might find a lake,” he corrects Callie softly. “And it might be safe to swim in.” He inspects a carrot and rubs it clean on his shirt. “It’d be great if you could join us. We could sign a petition to make sure we actually get to go.” 

“Jake will take us,” you say, suddenly, and your voice sounds so scratchy and loud and bad. “I mean,” you clear your throat and look away. “Any excuse to go on a camping trip, right?” You’re fine talking to him when it’s just the two of you alone, but now you feel like Jane’s judging you. 

You shouldn’t talk about your thoughts with anyone under any circumstances, really. 

“But, uh, yeah,” you struggle regain your dignity, with everyone still staring at you. “Sounds great.” 

“Good!” John beams, his smile eating up the whole bottom of his face, and you just want to die. “Janey, how ‘bout you?” 

Jane rolls her eyes and pushes her glasses up her nose. “I don’t know. I just got rid of all my mosquito bites.” 

“Jane come on!” Callie says, putting the camera up to her face and taking another picture. Of you and Jane together. You watch as the camera whirs, getting its shit together, and then slowly spitting out a white square of paper. Old tech is the coolest. 

“Yeah, Jane, come on,” John bumps into her shoulder. “It’ll be fun. Won’t it, Rox?” 

“Yeah, of course. I’ll get Dirk to make you an umbrella that just like, envelopes you in a cloud of bug spray so the mosquitos won’t even come near you. I’ll use my wiles.” You wiggle your fingers playfully and try to talk only to Jane, but John’s right there and you keep seeing him right out of the corner of your eye. Not your fault. 

You blush and sort of look away.

John still laughing, though. He’s taken a group of photos from Callie, and you can see them in his hand. “I’m going to hang these up, to develope,” he says, and every word is measured out in just the right amount. “I’ll talk to you later, Roxy. And Jane, give me the answer when you can.” 

Jane rolls her eyes, and John walks away, lifting up and then dissolving into air. You watch him go, and your fingers tighten around each other. 

“So?” Jane says, raising an eyebrow at you. “You’re going camping.”

“Jane!” You can feel the blood rushing into your cheeks, just underneath the bridge of your nose. “Yes. I will go camping. And it will be a lot of fun.” You make sure your words are absolutely not suggestive in any way. 

“Roxy,” Callie rolls her eyes. “You’re blushing. Bright red all over, okay?” 

“Am not!” 

“You are. But it’s okay.” She smiles really sweetly, and you can see all her teeth. “He just got three pictures of you, and he’s going to hang them up on his wall so he can see them every day.” 

“Callie what the hell! That’s so creepy!” You smack her on the side of her bald head and she laughs, ducking into you, so her face is against your side. Jane watches the two of you and shakes her head, smiling. 

“I’m not going camping,” she says, making it final. “No matter how many umbrellas you convince your brother to make. If I have to stay in a tent with all of you for one night, I’m going to go insane.” 

You shake your head and smile a little and shake your head. And then you follow Jane into the house, your arm wrapped tightly around Callie’s shoulders.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if it's weird to have them doing such domestic stuff, but I feel like they sort of would have to, when they're all on their own. idk

When the pictures are dry you lay them all out on your bed, masking tape in one hand. Callie took pictures of the tower, of a couple of gardening tools someone had left around, flowers. Jane’s carrots, Jane, Jane and Roxy. And one of just Roxy, her nose twisted up at the camera. 

You smile at that one, and run your finger along the white strip at the bottom of the picture. And then you take your finger back and look at it. Is it weird, to have a picture her in your room? No, you decide it’s not. It’s her, standing right next to Jane, your sister, and anyways, the two of you are friends. 

You can’t imagine not being friends with Roxy. 

You press rolls of tape to the back and then stick them up on the wall. Callie was right, it really does make your room look a lot friendlier. You step back, the twenty-odd pictures making a line across the bottom of your mural. It won’t be any problem to get Jake to take you all on a hike. You don’t know why you said that stuff about needing a petition or whatever. You guess you just felt a little off kilter, with Jane there. 

She was watching you more intently than she usually does. 

You leave your room and let yourself fall over the balcony, turning yourself incorporeal just before you hit the ground. You blow yourself into the kitchen, atoms tumbling over yourself until you land, feet first, on the tile floor. Jake’s sitting at the end of the table, a pile of carrot peels in front of him. 

He looks up when you come in, his eyebrows edging over his thick-framed glasses. “Hey, John. How are you today?” 

“I’m alright. I’m off work duty today.” You hit your hands on the table and look around. “Do you want to take a group of us on a camping expedition sometime? Like, in a couple of days?” 

“Yeah?” Jake looks up. “Jane and Roxy mentioned something like that.” 

“Yeah, I was thinking you could show some of the places you’ve found, or whatever. We shouldn’t live in a place we don’t know much about.” You reach over and take a carrot from the bowl. At this rate, you’re going to eat dinner before it’s cooked. 

“And, Roxy,” Jake says, like that’s something to consider, as he picks up another carrot. They’re ridiculously small carrots. You feel like someone should have let them grow bigger, but you’re not in charge of that part of the garden. 

“Roxy?” 

Jake nods, still looking you over his glasses. 

“What about her? She’s coming, she said.” You take another carrot and put it between your teeth, twirling it around so that there’s a band without carrot around the middle. You like to do that sometimes, and pretend that you’re a totem lathe. 

“She did.” Jake nods solemnly.

“Right, okay. So, does leaving in a couple of days sound good to you?” 

“Yeah, I’ll draw up a list of supplies that we’ll need, and get back to you. You’re going to need to go around and figure out everybody who’s coming with us so I can calculate correctly. And,” he tapped his fingers on the bottom of his hairline,”talk to Roxy.”

“I’m sorry?” You take the carrot out from your teeth to look at him. 

“Talk to her, okay? That’s all I’m asking.” He takes a handful of shaved carrots up and throws them into a bowl. They hit a layer of vegetables already in the bottom with a hollow clunk. 

“I talk to her all the time. I was just talking to her.” You make a face at him as you stand up. 

“I know, but, I mean, really talk to her. Please. For the sanity of everyone here?” 

You roll her eyes and leave him there, heading to find Callie and the rest of her pictures.

 

You wind up talking to Roxy the next morning. You’ve brought your hammock down outside the building and are stretching out in it, feeling the sun on your face and and arms and on your stomach where your shirt isn’t quite meeting your waistline.

She comes out, carrying a basket of her laundry and sits down next to you. You open one eyes so you can see her, and she leans over and flicks you on the nose. “What are you doing out here, sir?” 

You laugh and turn away from her, burying your face in your arm. “I’m waiting for my clothes to dry. They’re all out there, hanging.”

“Yeah, sure, I believe that.” She rolls her eyes and swing her legs up and over so her feet are right by your face. The hammock swings violently to one side, but she rearranges her weight before the whole thing tips. “Lazyass.”

You smile again, and look at her. Your glasses are by the ground next to you, so all you can see is her mass of white hair and the outline of her face. “You haven’t even washed your clothes yet, so who are you to be talking?” 

She laughs and leans back, so her head is resting on your shins. “So, camping?” She says after a long minute. You like the weight of her head and the warmth of your face, so you try not to shift your legs at all. 

“Yeah, I guess. You’re coming, Callie’s coming, me, Terezi, Dave, and Jade. And of course, Jake. No one else was really too keen on going outside for an extended period of time.” You rub your nose as you talk, self-conscious. You can’t tell if she’s looking at you or not, or if she’s even interested in what you’re saying. 

“Yeah, that’s going to be brutal.” You feel her head tip back against your feet. 

“Then why are you going?”

“I don’t know. Get out of here, I guess? I mean, it’s not that I don’t love it here, it’s just that I thought when we won, we’d have so much more space. We used to have four planets, and now we just sort of . . . have four blocks.” 

You nod. “I mean, while I was on the ship, all I could imagine was that I would end up in a place sort of like where I started off? With a lot of houses and the ability to go anywhere and everywhere. But that was really not the case.”

She nods, or, at least you think she does, and the two of you sit in silence for another few moments. You don’t want her to move, though. You don’t want her to pick up her stuff and leave, so you desperately think of another thing to say. Something less boring this time. 

“So, Jake said I should talk to you?”

“I’m sorry?” You feel her head lift away from your legs and you instantly regret speaking. 

“I don’t know, Jake said I really should come talk to you, but he didn’t say why.” 

“Right.” You feel her weight shift in the hammock, and you don’t know what you’ve done or what you said, but you feel her getting up to go. “It’s probably nothing important. At least, if he didn’t tell you what it was about, then it probably isn’t important at all.” She stands up and you fall forward a little. “I’m sorry John, but you’re right, I’ve really got to do all this work. I’ll talk to you later, okay?” 

You think she waves at you before leaving, and you sit up to watch her go. You could think that maybe you should know what upset her, but at the same time it feels just out of reach. A sadness settles in the pit of your stomach and the bottom of your chest, and you stand up to take down your own clothes.


	4. Roxy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot spell sandwich. It is only by the grace of spellcheck that I got through the entire chapter.

The first day of the trip is brutal. Absolutely brutal. You guess, living in the middle of the ocean all your life, with all the chess people, didn’t really prep you for walking through a place full trees and roots and dirt and bugs. You thought Jane was just overreacting, but no. There are so many fucking bugs. You think that you’ve eaten at least fifteen. 

And you’re all the way in the back of the group. Callie’s just ahead of you, talking happily to herself about everything that she’s seeing, but you don’t think she has sweat glands, her dress swinging happily around the back of her knees. 

And the sun is hot, even through the canopy of trees, and you haven’t got to see John since the morning when he tied up your backpack and patted you on the shoulder and asked you if you were good to go. “Of course,” you replied, and leaned into him so your shoulder banged against his. 

He leaned into you and shoved you back lightly. “If you need help with anything, I’ll be up front with the coolers.” 

You don’t want to seem like you need help with anything, because you do not need to be the fair maiden to get his attention, but at the same time you’ve been trying to think up excuses to go talk to him. 

“Roxy, pose!” Callie calls, and you look up, startled by how much further ahead of you she is. You toss your hair back and put your hand on a hip, wrinkling up your nose for her. She laughs and takes the picture, the shutter sweeping shut just another sound in the forest. “You’re always wrinkling your nose,” she says, looking down as the camera spits the picture out. 

“It makes me, like, 8,000 times cuter.” You loop your fingers through the backpack strap and hurry to catch up with her, stepping over protruding rocks. You’re loathe to admit how much you dislike having your picture taken, because you feel like that’s a strange thing to be worried about, but you really don’t. “You’re keeping those pictures for yourself, right?”

“Nope,” Callie shakes her head as she takes the picture out of the camera. “I’m giving all these pictures to John. We’re going to make his room into a collage!” She wiggles the film back and forth. You watch her fingernails. They’re thick and long and sort of a translucent green.

“Callie, come on. I don’t want him to have like fifty pictures of me and my gross face watching him sleep. Did you know that some people used to think that every photograph taken of you was a little piece of your soul?” 

Callie looks at you, and you can’t read her expression. “You’re face isn’t gross.” She sticks the picture into a side pocket of her backpack, watching you intently. 

You shrug. “That’s not really the problem, dear.” Terezi and Dave are about forty feet in front of you, and they have a camera too. Dave’s standing on a stump, pulling a muscle-man pose, and Terezi has the camera only marginally pointed in the right direction. 

Callie leans into you, and you pull her closer. You sigh and the breath leaves you like so many weights off your chest. “

“Do you want to tell me what the problem is?” She asks, and you shake your head. You’d tell her, if you knew what it was yourself. 

Around one, all of you stop in a clearing for lunch. You put your backpack on the ground and sit on it so you don’t get your ass wet, and look around. Jake has opened the smallest cooler and is pulling out sandwiches. Callie scootches up next to you. “Can you make me a flower crown?” Her smile is shit-eating, and you laugh back. 

“Of course. Get me flowers.” You wiggle your arms in the direction of the meadow. “I’m not moving my ass all the way over there.” 

She jumps up and runs a couple of yards over, almost tripping on her own bare feet. Dave comes up to her, watching her go, noisily eating a bag of chips. “Does she need sunscreen on her scalp, do you think?” 

“Oh.” You consider her, ripping up all the flowers within arms reach. “I never thought of that. I mean, she used to live right next to a star, right?” 

“Yeah, I guess. Chip?” He sticks out the back to you, and you reach in to take a few. You enjoy talking to the Strider brothers over the computer more. Their stupid sunglasses make it impossible to tell if they were looking at you, and when they were typing at least you knew if they were paying attention. 

“These are so gross,” you say, the grease of the chips leaving stripes on your hand. 

Dave snorts. “I know. They’re like a shitpost for your stomach.” 

You snort helplessly. “What the fuck does that even mean?” 

He snorts too, from the back of his throat. “No fucking clue, man. I mean. I’ll probably be vomiting in some bushes later. I haven’t eaten crap food like this in so long.” 

“Oh my God, David, you’re so gross.” You throw the remnants of a chip at him, and it bounces off his skinny jeans. He must be dying in those. 

“Guys!” Jake shouts from behind you. “This is a carry in-carry out situation. Stop littering!” 

You turn to look at him, and John is crouching next to him, his arms crossed over his legs. Behind Jake’s back he tsks and shakes his head at you, fighting back a smile.   
The moment Jake turns away from you, you flip John off, and he laughs. 

He throws a sandwich at your head, and it hits your forehead with perfect aim. You flip him off again, and Dave shouts “Hit me!” 

The second sandwich hits you too, and you smile into your shirt. Dave catches you and casually bumps into your shoulder. “Anything you want to tell me, hot mom?” 

“Holy shit, you perv.” You punch him, but he still sits down next to you, picking his saran-wrapped sandwich off of the ground. The two of you watch Callie together, the companionable silence between you broken only by the low hum of the wind.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys I'm sorry this is late, I underestimated graduation party stuff. To everyone that is graduating, I wish you all the best luck in the world!   
> Also I promise more stuff will happen in the upcoming chapters, I promise.

You reach the campsite by late afternoon. It’s really early evening, verging on fucking night, but Jade had decided optimism is the best course for a peaceful vacation. 

Jake had set up shop by a lake, which Callie appreciates. “I want to go swimming!” She says, already in the water up to her knees. 

“No, come on Callie, get out. Come help Jake with the fire!” You’re setting up tents a bit back from the waterline, tucked in between the trees. You’re planning on sleeping in one of those zip-in hammocks, but unfortunately, not everyone else was as proactive as you. You slide the poles through the fabric, praying that it won’t get caught. 

“I got this end,” Roxy says, kneeling down on the other side of you. She looks drop dead tired, just about ready to fall over on her feet. 

“Thanks, Rox,” you say, and she looks up at you. 

“You sound fucking exhausted.” 

You laugh, and look down at the tent in your hands. It’s only half completed, the artificial skeletal system not fully injected. “Yeah, I am.” 

She smiles and bumps into your shoulder. “What do you need?”

The two of you put that tent and the other up. You enjoy spending time with Roxy, to an extent you can’t explain. The way she knows what you were going to do before you did it, and her ability to make you smile uncontrollably with the barest of jokes. 

“Which one will you be sleeping in?” Roxy asks as the two of you stand back to admire your work.

“Oh, hammock,” you say, and you swear she looks a little disappointed. 

You eat hot dogs roasted over the fire, and you swear you’ve never seen Callie happier. Though you’re so, so resentful of everything the game took from you, you can see how it’s worth it. Sitting here, for one thing, surrounded by your family. 

Dave coaxes Terezi closer and closer towards the fire, until she jumps back. “I might be blind, asshole, but I can still feel all the fucking heat!” Dave laughs uproariously, and everyone else laughs too. 

Jake attempts to roast a marshmallow to perfection, but you and Jade coordinate your efforts to make him drop it into the fire at just--the right--time so that it catches on fire and burst into flames in a sticky mess. He throws one at Jade and she screams laughing, the goo sticking to her shirt. 

Roxy, for her part, keeps trying to tell scary stories, but no one’s willing to listen. “Your stories are never scary,” Jade says, helping herself to a raw marshmallow. “I mean, either that, or they’re way too scary.” 

“Are not!”

“I second Jade,” Dave says, pointing at her. He and Terezi are trying for a game of Fluffy Bunny. “They all end with someone getting swallowed by the void, which is either not really scary at all, or way too fucking terrifying.” 

“Flubby Bunby,” Terezi says, her mouth full to burst. She’s been laughing so hard there’s tears in her eyes. 

You laugh too, your back resting against a log. You’ve been cooking marshmallows for Callie, because she doesn’t want to get too close to the fire. Her head is on your shoulder, and you can feel her breathing slow as she winds her way to sleep. 

After you tuck her into her sleeping bag, the rest of the six of you go out and sit out on rocks on the outskirts of the lake. You find yourself between Jade and Roxy, and you throw your arm around both of them. “We should make up constellations,” you say, as quietly as you can. The night is a sacred thing, the heavens descending to touch the earth. 

Jade laughs and points to the sky. “You see those stars right there? Those two in a line, and how those other ones bulge out?” 

“Uh huh,” you follow where her finger is pointing and nod. 

“I vote we call that constellation Bilious Slick.” 

“Okay, but there are all those stars in between them, like, in the center of the space--”

She swats you lightly on the arm. “This is our planet. We get to make the rules.” 

Roxy giggles sleepily on your other side, and you look over at her. Being next to her makes you so insanely happy, and you don’t even know why. 

You go in before the moons reach the top of the sky. Zipping yourself into your hammock, you feel a profound sense of peace. Like everything in the universe has moved to bring you to this moment. This happiness. You fall asleep quickly, and wake up with a smile on your face.


	6. Roxy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy!

You and Jade wake up before Callie, the silence of the tent stifling. Heat trapped between layers of plastic tarp, and Callie’s still-sleeping breath circulates. Jade rolls over in her bed, her sleeping bag trapped between her armpit and the cushion she’s sleeping on. “Wanna get outta here, babe?” She says, shooting finger guns and winking. 

You laugh and bury your face into your pillow. “Jake doesn’t do that,” you say, turning your head so you can see her. Your face is half into the pillow, and your nose is bent over itself. You feel like a sleepy mess.

She looks like one, too, her hair tangled and wild, caught up in her ears and looped carelessly in front of her face. Her eyes seem even larger without her glasses, her smile just slightly too big for her face. The Harleyberts are intense people, even at the ungodly hour of the morning. 

“You don’t know that,” she says, kicking her legs free of the bags. “Okay, maybe he doesn’t, but you know who I was mimicking. Come on, let’s go for a swim before the rest of these losers wake up.” 

The two of you change as quietly as you can, and Jade jimmys open the zipper of the tent. The morning is colder than you expected, and there’s dew on everything. The fire from last night is nothing more than cold ash, and the campsite seems both bigger and smaller than it did in the dark. You follow Jade cautiously through the woods, taking care not to step on pointy bits with your bare feet.

The lake is clear and hemmed in on all sides by trees. Last night it had been a reflecting pool for the stars, but today the water was glassy and clear. Last night, you’d sat next to John, your head on his chest, but--you try not to think about that as you ease the tips of your toes into the water. 

“Jesus Jade!” You jump back quickly. “This is fucking cold!”

She giggles, already in up to her knees. “Come on, you big baby. This isn’t so bad. It’ll be great once you just jump in.” 

“I am not just jumping the fuck in. I might die of hypothermia.” 

She laughs, throwing back her head, and you can see her teeth. “You will not die, I promise. If you start to look blue and shaky we’ll just get John to warm you up.”

“I’m sorry?” You’re arms are crossed over your chest because you’re fucking cold, and you have goosebumps up and down your arms. You try to make a face that’s somewhat menacing, but you don’t think you succeed, through your chattering teeth. 

“Body heat,” Jade says, nodding at you suavely. “Right, John?” 

“What are we talking about?” 

You turn around so fast your foot slips, and you land in the water on your butt as your legs fly out from underneath you. John is standing on the shore, his hair messed up, his hand in front of his mouth. He looks at you, his eyes unfocused. “Roxy?”

Jade laughs, and you pull yourself up from the water. “Yeah, it’s me.” He isn’t wearing his glasses, so his gaze is focused somewhere between your eyes and your hairline. 

He smiles. “What are you two doing out here?”

“Swimming!” Jade calls from deeper in the water. She’s up to her chest now, her arms trailing out leisurely behind her. “Just a wake-me-up!” 

John shakes his head and looks at the water sadly. “It’s fucking cold, though.” 

“Oh my God, don’t I fucking know it.” You stand up and rub your hands over your shoulder. The back of your hair is wet, and water drips down your spine, into the waistband of your bathing suit. 

“John, hug her!” Jade calls, the water creeping up on her collar bones. “Only your body heat can save her!”

He laughs and steps into the water, like this is some fucking joke, and wraps his arms around you. He’s still wearing his pajamas, and the cloth is nice and warm. It smells like him, too, and you feel yourself stiffening up as he tucks your head underneath his chin. “You okay?” he asks, and you can feel his voice rumbling through your body. 

You nod, unable to breath. 

“Need a towel?” He says, pushing back from you so he can see your face. You nod again. Your eyes feel too wide. You feel like you’re not acting like a normal human being. You feel like you need to remember how to breath but you can’t. Your breath is all caught up in your chest and your fingers are dug right into your arms. Jade laughs wickedly as John walks away, out of the water and up to the camp, the water touching her chin. 

You stand in the shallows, colder than you were before. You can still feel your heart in your ears. Fucking christ, you really need to pull yourself together.


	7. John

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who keeps reading this, and to everyone who leaves comments. I'm a total dork, so I don't know how to reply to you, but you make me smile all the time! :) If there's anything you guys want to see in here, let me know!

You’re making grilled cheese over an open fire when Dave sits next to you. Jake made you this little sandwich-maker device, where you put the breads slices together, and then you put the bread on top, and then you stick them both together in this little metal pocket, and it’s really very clever, but you need to hold the handles together very tightly in order to keep the bread from falling out. It doesn’t really matter, actually, but it just takes a lot of mental concentration. 

So when Dave sits next to you, his shoulder colliding you into yours, you elbow him in the stomach. “Fucker. Do you even want lunch?” 

“What?” 

“I will drop your lunch into the fire, so help me god, and then you’ll have to dig through the ashes to find this piece of fucking cheese.” 

Dave shrugs. “I’m lactose intolerant, anyways.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes I am! You can’t just look at me and be like ‘your food allergies are invalid,’ because that’s a shitty thing to do.” 

“I just saw you drink like, a half gallon of milk yesterday. You’re not lactose intolerant.” 

“Oh.” He looks at the fire thoughtfully, stroking his chin. 

“You don’t even have a beard.”

“Yes I do! Give me your free hand,” he sticks out his palm and grabs your free hand, rubbing it along the bottom of his face. “Do you feel that?”

“What, your peach fuzz?”

“Fuck you! It’s a real life beard, okay. I’m a fucking man.” 

You laugh and shake your head, opening up the little metal clam to check on the food. It looks cooked enough. Well, it looks as cooked as it’s ever going to get. You dump the sandwich onto a plate you have located conveniently near by. You’re really such a pro at this sort of stuff, if you do say so yourself. 

“Can I eat that?” Dave points to the sandwich you just made as you assemble another one. 

“I thought you were lactose intolerant.” You stick the new sandwich into the fire and lean on him, using your weight to collapse him. It was really great, growing two whole feet taller than him. It was the best birthday present you could have ever hoped to receive. 

“Fuck you. May I please have that wonderful and delicious sandwich that you *obviously* put so much effort in to.” 

“You’ve been spending way too much time with your matesprite,” you say shaking your head. “And if you want it, you can move your ass over there and get it.” 

“Okay first of all, I don’t fuck with troll romance,” he says, but you know that’s such a lie. 

“Excuse you, I’ve heard you and Terezi talking!”

“What the hell man! That’s so creepy.” You laugh as he leans across you, his short arms grasping for his lunch. 

“Okay, no. You two are the loudest on this fucking planet. I can’t help but hear the two of you talking all day. Even your ‘whispers’ are on speaking level.” 

“Other than Roxy.”

“What’s that?” This morning, you stepped into the lake and hugged Roxy. All normal-like. What’s a hug between friends. You hug Jade and Rose and Jane all the fucking time. But this latest has you shaky in the legs and in the arms, which is not normal. And still thinking about it five hours later, which is plain stupid. 

“Mmmmm,” Dave says, nodding, his ice-blonde eyebrow creeping over the top of his shades. All the Strilondes have the same peroxide white hair, minus the chemicals. It keeps them looking much more dangerous than they should. “I saw how that made you jump.”

“What? I was just wondering how she played into the conversation.” 

Dave laughs. For such a short person, he makes a lot of sound. “Yeah, sure, of course, that was it.” 

“What else would it be?”

“Oh, come one. Jade has told practically everybody of your life-saving heroism this morning. Rushing into the lake with your pajamas still on, without even your glasses, to save my sister from hypothermia.” 

“It wasn’t even like that, man. I was out to pee, when I was walking over to the campsite Jade just starts yelling for me.”

“So? Do you always do what your sister tells you what to do?” 

“Yeah. Don’t you?” 

Dave laughs, throwing back his head. When you two were just typing each other, you didn’t ever think he emoted this much in real life. And maybe he didn’t used to.   
“They fucking wish.” 

You laugh and shake your head. The direction that this conversation is headed in is making you uneasy. Sort of unsteady. Sort of like after you stepped out of the water this morning, and your stomach was liquid and your legs were rubber. “Whatever, man.”

“You should ask her out on a date.” 

Your heart jumps into your throat, a physical thing. “Who, Jade?” 

Dave laughs again, like you just told the best joke. “No, asshole, Roxy. Just so the two of you can stop with this fucking romantic tension or whatever.”

“We have romantic tension?” 

He looks at you, and you’re pretty sure he’d be looking at you straight in the eyes if it wasn’t for his shades. His mouth is doing that weird thing where it turns down at the corners, his lips pursed together. “Are you truly that fucking oblivious?” 

You shrug, keeping your face as still as possible. If you ever were going to ask someone on a date, you sure as hell don't want Dave Strider involved. And maybe you are that fucking oblivious. It's none of his business. So you roll your eyes as smoothly as you can, and gesture to your metal dealie. You hope he doesn't notice the way your fingers, the way your whole hand is shaking. “Do you want another sandwich?”


	8. Roxy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a good day everybody!

“No, Rez, give me that!” You take the wet towel away from her and bang it out, knocking off all the pinecones and dirt that had stuck to it in its journey across the campsite. “You can’t just drag everything through the dirt.”

“Oh, sorry.” She looks at you, sort of. “I didn’t know what else to do with it.” 

“I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.” 

She shrugs. “I wasn’t really paying attention, actually.” 

“Thanks.” You shake the towel one more time, just to make sure all the gross stuff is out, and you fold it over the drying line. Everyone has been swimming all morning. You were too, you guess. You were mostly worrying, though. Running things over and over again in your mind. Over thinking it. As usual. Nervous energy has created a rock in the bottom of your stomach, and you do your best not to think about it too often. And you know you sound too serious when you say “That’s fucking helpful,” like maybe you sound like you’re actually angry.

“I know.” Terezi isn’t ever offended. Or maybe she doesn’t even realize you’re upset. She tips her head to the side, her eyes still fixed somewhere over your shoulder. “I’m trying to listen to them.” 

“Them?” 

“Shhhhh! Dave and John.” She tilts her head even more viciously to side, squeezing her eyes together as though that would help her catch more sound. 

“Dave and John?” They’re sitting close together by the fire, Dave’s shoulder right next to John’s. As you watch, John turns to Dave and offers him something that he pulled out of the fire. Dave pushes his arm away and shakes his head. It doesn’t look like they’re doing anything out of the ordinary, for them, at least. 

“Fuck. I can’t hear them anymore.” Rezi rubs her ears, annoyed. “Do you think he’ll make me food?” 

“John? Yeah, sure.” You’ve never heard John refuse to do anything he’s been asked to do. Including hugging people, even if he really didn’t want to. Doubt makes your knees weak and the inside of your chest feel smaller and close together. “He’ll--he’ll do it.” 

Terezi shrugs again. You get the feeling that she isn’t really into being out in the woods. “They were talking about you?”

“What!?” 

“Hush, keep your voice down!” She presses a finger into your lips and shakes her head. “And really, why else would I be listening to them? You’re the only interesting thing they talk about.” 

You pull her hand away from your mouth. “I’m sorry?” They talk about you a lot? You’re stuck between pissed and elated, something caught in the back of your throat. 

“Yeah. They haven’t so much recently, but you know. I need to keep up on gossip.” She pats your shoulder consolingly. “Help me go sit down by them? I left my cane in my tent, and I’ll tell you everything I hear when they’re done.” 

“No, I don’t want to go over there!” You look over at the campfire again, and they’re still sitting next to each other. It looks like they’re eating something. You don’t--you can’t. You can’t.

“Why not? Come on, just hold my arm and guide me.” She grabs on to you. Her hands are really strong, and her fingernails are really sharp. You couldn’t shake her off if you tried. Reluctantly, you leave your sanctuary of the clothesline and lead her across the open expanse of the campfire. 

You try to sit Terezi down on a log and leave before they notice you, but John smiles at you, really nice and open, and you can’t help but smile back, so you stay. You wrap your arms around your legs as soon as you sit down, and stare really hard into the fire. So you can’t see him. See if he’s watching you or anything, because he’s probably not. Not that you care. 

“So, lunch?” Terezi says, really loud and right in your ear. You never really realized how loud she was and how she was all limbs and movement. 

“Yeah, of course,” John says, and he pushes a sandwich over to her. “You want on, Rox?” Between you and he are Terezi and Dave, and you still can’t look over at him. 

“Oh yeah, thanks!” You sound so chipper and annoying and nervous and you swear to god you see Dave elbow John in the side. John does say anything though, he just does whatever he’s doing with his little metal contraption. 

The four of you sit there, silently. The only one who doesn’t seem to be all edges is John, which makes you only more nervous. It’s pretty hot, too, so you don’t know why you’re all sitting so close to the fire, but you don’t want to move. 

“Where’s everyone else?” John asks eventually, turning his metal dealie over in his hand. 

“Oh, the other three went out on a nature hike, or something,” Dave says, shrugging fluidly. 

“Why? Aren’t we in the middle of nature?” Terezi jabs her finger at something randomly. A tree, maybe. 

“Yes, but we’re not walking,” Dave points out. He’s got a stick from somewhere and is using it to jab into the fire, sending sparks up. 

“Oh, fuck you,” Terezi shakes her head out, her short hair flying around her face. “Jeegus is that a fucking bug?” 

“Oh, yeah,” Dave reaches over and snatches something out of the air. “Shit that wasn’t it.” 

You bite your bottom lip as you watch them, as Dave starts to slap Terezi on her shoulders and her back and she yells out where she thinks it is. You see John watching them over their heads, and you put your fingers together, framing the pair in a diamond. He laughs silently. 

You smile into your arm before they notice, and look back at the fire. The jittery feeling that’s been with you all morning has dissipated, replaced with a lightness. Today, you think, is going to be a good one.


	9. John

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that everyone is having a good day, as usual. If anyone wants to chat I'm at sargentboxcars on tumblr! And really, if there's anything anyone wants to see in the story, please let me know :)

Dave’s aim with water balloons is scary good. You got him and Terezi and Callie when you were choosing teams, and you’re incredibly grateful because Dave is just wrecking the other team. Just wrecking them. The no man’s land between your forts is littered with brightly colored rubber and starbursts of water. The other team is pressed up behind trees, in desperate need of supplies. And Dave, the ruthless bastard, doesn’t let up. 

Everyone else on your team, on the other hand, is fucking hopeless. Terezi’s been licking the water balloons before she throws them -- she claims it’s some sort of biological warfare, or something, but really it’s just making them fall out of her hands before she gets the chance to throw them -- and Callie is really missing the point. 

“You’re supposed to throw them at those guys over there.” 

“What? I don’t want to. I want to keep them.” She finds a large orange one and nestles it in her lap along with six other ones she’s already deemed too special to throw. 

“They’re not eggs, love, you have to throw them at the other team!” 

“No, John, I’m not going to, okay!? Please, go make more so I can collect more of them.” She brushes you off and rearranges her skirt across her legs. “They’re really colorful.” 

Yes, and you are the one filling up the water balloons for your team, so you don’t even have time to help anyone cheat by giving their balloons a little extra push with some wind. Not that you would think about cheating. But you would. 

“Alright, but, please, Dave needs at least some of them.” 

“Yeah, yeah!” The four of you are camped out behind a fallen log. You don’t know why there’s already a fallen tree on your new planet, but it’s a better hide-out than the other team has. Dave throws himself backwards, so he’s right next to you. “Come on, I need more ammo!” 

“This is really fucking hard without a hose, okay?” You hand him one that you’re not finished tying off yet. There’s this whole process you’re going through to get the water into these things, and it’s much more stressful than it looks. “Maybe we should take a break right now. Lull them into a false sense of security.” 

“No way, man! I was just about to rush them!”

“I think that it would be a better strategy to let them come to us. So that some of us will have a better time aiming.” You stretch the ending of another balloon, wrapping it around your fingers to tie it off. 

“I am hitting everyone I’m throwing these at!” Terezi yells, letting off another balloon in the opposite direction of the enemy.

“Yeah, because you’re not throwing them at anyone,” Callie says, smoothing her hands over her small stash. She abhors the wasteful loss of balloons more than using them as grenades. 

Terezi rolls her eyes and throws one, at close range, right at Callie’s face. It breaks right over her eyes, the water dripping down past her eyes and spattering on the top of her dress. Callie looks up at the troll, her eyes wide. The balloon is still on her head, like some sort of strange jellyfish. 

“Lighten up, Babe.” Terezi grabs one of the balloons from Callie’s lap and throws it, dead on, in the direction of the enemy. You hear a terrified shriek that sounds like Roxy. “I’ll make you more pretty balloons later, but right now we have ass to kick.” You and Dave exchange looks, and then examine the water balloon bucket. 

Callie’s still deciding whether to be upset or not when you shove another several balloons at her. “Wait until they come and rush us, alright, and then we’ll hit them with everything we’ve got.”

Dave, crouching next to you, nods. “Cals, you be Sargant General in command, okay? When they come at us, you’re the first one out of the trench.” 

Callie bites her bottom lip and nod, previous injustice forgotten. It doesn’t take long for the other team to come at you, though it looks like their ammo supplies are minimal. Jake, Roxy, and Jade are not the best combination when regarding strategy. 

Callie stands first, screaming like a warrior from the pits of hell, and Terezi throws herself over the log second, getting caught up and tangled, one arm raised over her head so you grab her torso and pull her over, balloons shoved into your pants pocket, tied up in your shirt like you’re a kangaroo. Dave’s right on your other side, and the first balloon you throw hits your brother in the face and drips down his nose like a broken egg. 

He shouts and turns away, blindly flinging out another grenade and it’s a candy colored chaos. Terezi, next you, has grabbed onto Roxy and is licking her face and you pull her off, laughing. Jade hits you in the torso, first with a balloon and then with her whole body and the two of you go down, the branches digging into your back.   
Rezi trips over your arm and the three of you lay there, dazed for a moment. 

Jade sits up, her elbows digging into your stomach as she looks around. “This would be more fun with more people,” she says critically. Everyone stops to look at her. 

“And more balloons,” you agree.

“Water guns!” Roxy shouts. “Holy shit, can we get some water guns!” 

Jake throws his arms up in the air. “Look, I just thought that this would be a fun group activity, okay?” 

“Splash fight!” Callie says, the balloons in her skirt shattered on the ground around her. 

“Fuck yeah!” Dave takes off down the hill, back towards the campsite and the lake, and Jade follows, elbowing you a couple more times in her attempt to stand up.

“I can’t see where the hell we’re going,” Terezi says helpfully, waving her arm around in the air. Jake grabs her hand, still muttering to himself, and the two of them stumble around logs together out of the forest. 

Roxy laughs helplessly as she watches the two of them go. “That ended quickly.” 

You smile back, and then remember you have to think of something to say. “Right, yeah. Well, I mean, we were almost out of balloons anyways.” 

“Oh yeah, us too. Those were the last of ours,” she says, pointing at the shards of balloon on the ground. “Do we have to pick all of this up?” 

You make a face. “We probably should.” 

She hits you in the arm and rolls her eyes. “I’ll get our bucket.” 

Your team’s bucket is only half full of water, so you dump it out. Roxy does the same thing with her team’s and comes back over to you, stepping carefully. “Wait,” you   
hold out your arm to her, “where are your shoes?” 

“Oh, Jade dumped them in the lake.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder. It hangs around her head for a moment, catching the light. “They’ll be wet for a while yet.” 

“Eugh, that’s so gross. Come on.” You wiggle your arm at her, staring intently at her hand. You don’t think you can look at her in the face right now. 

“What, you want me to hold your arm?” 

“Of course.” You gesture to Jake and Terezi, who are still stumbling through the bushes a ways away. “What sort of gentleman would I be if I didn’t?” 

She smiles and lays her arm around yours. “It’s nice to know that there’s still civilized society left out here in the wilderness.” Her fake english accent is so poor, you can’t help but laugh. Together the two of you walk out of the woods, the warmth of her arm on yours drowning out everything else.


	10. Roxy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everybody! I'm sorry, I never expected this story go on so long, so I got all caught up in my summer vacation and college search and man . . . it's just been a long week. I'm not ready to be an adult yet!
> 
> But, your lovely messages made me feel so much better and I promise, this story will continue on for another while. Thank you so much, and I hope you all are having a lovely day!

Your fear of swimming is deep and ingrained. You cannot imagine enjoying jumping into briny depths, but that seems to be what people do for fun. “Rox look!” Callie’s wearing a one piece with a little flounce around her waist. She does a pirouette in the water, and falls on her butt, laughing. 

You rub your arms and stand on a rock, overlooking the pool. Terezi sits next to you, swinging her legs in the water. She’s wearing one of those full-body wetsuits, and is still insisting that she’s cold. “The water is absolutely glacial David, I’m not swimming.” 

“Come on!” Dave tugs at her ankles and tries to pull her into the water. It only comes up to his knees, but the water foams around the bottom of his trunks. The foam is from the waterfall at the other side of the pond, and you can’t escape the sound. It’s the dull roar of an angered beast, and you don’t know how the others can play beside it. 

“I’m not going in!” Terezi shouts, her fingers digging into the moss of the rock. “And neither is your sister so screw you!” 

You shake your head vehemently. Out in the slightly deeper water, Jade is on John’s shoulders. Jake, with his feet on John’s waist, pulls himself up his siblings like they’re a human ladder. 

You simultaneously want to watch, and want to look away. You don’t think the water is deep enough to support these shenanigans, but you don’t want to be the one to tell them to stop. 

Jake grabs onto Jade’s shoulders and pulls himself up so he’s standing on her legs. 

“You fucking morons! Get your asses off each other!” Dave is the one who yells it, but Jake just flips him off and keeps climbing. 

“They’re going to crack their heads open,” you say. 

Rezi laughs and kicks her legs in the water, the cold foam washing up over your toes. "They'll be fine, you babies. You're not their luscues." 

Callie comes splashing up to you, water streaming down the front of her face and pooling in the hollows of her cheeks. She does another spin before falling over and clinging onto Dave, her tiny fingernails digging into his waistband. 

“Shit Cal, you can’t do that!” he yells and jumps away from her, and she laughing into the water, catching herself on the rocky bottom with her flat palms. 

Out in the deeper water, Jake wavers on the top of the human tower and then falls, his legs and arm sticking out in front of him comically. John catches him before he hits the water though, the wind roaring through the small valley you’re in to pool around Jake between his back and the water. Jade, laughing, slips off her brother’s shoulders easily, and slide into the water up to her neck. 

You watch them. None of them are wearing glasses, so they can’t see you. So you feel sort of creepy but it’s not like you’re REALLY being creepy. You’re just watching John as he ducks under the water and comes up again, pushing the hair out of his eyes. And how he collides his shoulder with Jade just so, so that she falls, and his collarbones meet his chest, and his chest meets his stomach, and his stomach meets his -- 

“Roxy!” 

“What?” Callie startles you, and you almost fall, but Rezi catches you by the back of your legs. She wiggles her eyebrows at you before letting you go, and you don’t think you’ve ever flushed deeper. 

“Roxy, come in the water with me,” Callie begs, sitting so just the oval of her face, from her chin to her scalp, is exposed. “It’s really nice, and we can play mermaids.” 

“What are we doing?” The Harlybertcrocklishes stand in a semicircle around Callie, but it’s John who poses the question. His arms are folded across his chest, and you’re doing you’re best not to stare at him. The rocks. The rocks in the pond are beautiful today, you think. You’ll study them really, really hard. Or your toes. Those are always a good option. 

“Mermaids!” Callie says, and she smiles up at him. 

“I’m game,” Dave nods, folding his arms over his chest too. 

“I call being queen!” Jade shouts and she runs back into the water, the white bubbles splashing up all around her. 

“I’m princess!” Callie shouts, and springs up, following her. 

“King.” Dave wiggles his eyebrows. “I’m better than all ya’ll bitches.” 

John laughs, and Jake shakes his head. “I’ll just be a lowly mermaid farmer,” he says. “Who lives on land and cooks dinner for humans.” 

John claps him on the back. “It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.”

“Oh, shut up,” Jake pushes John’s arm off him, rolling his eyes. “I don’t see anyone else volunteering.” 

The three still sitting there watch him go up the hill. “Is he actually mad?” Rezi asks, and John shakes his head. 

“Nah. I don’t think he likes swimming that much.” 

You nod. You know what it was like for him, growing up. All the darks shapes in the water, the white spines occasionally piercing the surface. The fear of teeth against your ankles and the knowledge that the things in the water were watching. Always watching. 

John turns back to you, smile. You smile back, biting your bottom lip. “Will you be my damsel in distress?” He asks, and you swallow. His smile lingers in the the creases of his face and in his eyes. 

You hold one hand over your heart and the other to your forehead, pretending to swoon. “Of course. I’m in desperate need of someone to save me.”

He laughs and steps forward, arms out, and before you know it you’re off your feet, against his chest. You kick through open air, and twist your neck, trying to find a better position, but  
whatever you do, he’s there. You try not to breath in too deep, because it would really be weird if it seemed like you were trying to smell him, but--

“You okay?” his voice rumbles through you and you nod. Dave whistles, his head about level with yours now, and Terezi laughs, her wheedling voice echoing through the pond. 

“You just scared me.” You won’t look at him, either, and you stare straight ahead as you speak. Your voice sounded pretty good, though, you think. You keep your fists up by your collarbone because it would be weird to put them anywhere else, right? Around his neck is for girlfriend, right? You wish you had a portable Rose you could talk to right now. 

He laughs, though, and it doesn’t like you’re doing anything wrong. He adjusts your weight against him, and your cheek is pressed into his shoulder. “Tell me if you’re uncomfortable or anything.” You feel him turning, and you feel his descent into the water. 

No, not--but. You press your eyes together and squeeze your fingers into the meat of your palm. NO. Not the water, but, you can’t leave. You can’t stop now. Jade and Callie scream for you from the deeper water, but you can’t open your eyes to look at them. You’re paralyzed, every joint frozen in place. You feel the water on the bottoms of your toes, on the bottoms of your feet, and a spasm goes through you. But you don’t want to move. 

He’ll never pick you up like this again if you tell him to put you down. He’ll think you hate him. He won’t--the water reaches your ankle and you grit your teeth. You could just tell him that you don’t know how to swim. You could say that you need to pee. You feel your heart in your chest, and it hurts.  
He stops walking with the water at the bottom of your calf. “Roxy?” 

You can’t answer him. 

“Roxy, what’s wrong?”

You shake your head, and you feel other people standing by you. Jade, it must be Jade, reaches out a long finger and traces down the side of your face. Callie touches you on her shoulder, her hand cold and wet. 

John readjusts your weight again, pressing you closer to him. “Rox, you have to tell me what’s wrong.” He sounds almost panicked. 

You shake your head. “I need to go out of the water,” you whisper. “Please put me down over there.” 

“Holy shit, of course.” He changes how he’s holding you, again, so instead of his damsel in distress, you’re wrapped around him like a BabyBjorn. Your legs are around his waist and your  
head is buried in his neck as he carries you back to shore. Dave whistles again, and Terezi whispers something just out of audible range, but all you can hear is the sound of John’s breathing. He carries you out of the water and up the embankment, his footsteps never faltering. You cling to him the whole way, feeling safer than you can ever remember


	11. John

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! I hope you're doing well, and that you're having a good day.

“You should ask her out.” 

“Jade, shut up. I didn’t come up here just to be harassed by you.” 

“I’m not harassing you--this is not harassment! Jacob, is this harassment?” 

Jake shakes his head. “This is not harassment, my fellow. It’s quite obvious, with all the romantic moves you’ve been putting on her, that you appreciate Rolal in a romantic manner.” 

You roll your eyes. You should have fucking known. Your siblings never just want to ‘chill’ or ‘hang out.’ ‘Go exploring,’ or whatever. They always have some sort of ulterior motive. And you’re not going to ask out a girl just because they’ve pressured you into it. That would be really awkward. And you have to make sure she wants you to ask her out first. 

So that she’ll say yes. 

Already, today, you have engaged Roxy in three (3) forms of physical contact. Three. You keep replaying them in your head, over and over and over again. This morning, and this afternoon, and then you carried her out of the water. That had been really nice but you don’t want to analyze it too much. Because then you might get lost in the way her breath warmed your chest and you could feel her pulse throughout your entire body. 

“He’s just a coward, Jade,” Jake shakes his head and steps up on a rock, his fingers digging into the dirt for support. “Not manly enough to confront his own feelings.”

Jade nods at you from on top of the rock, her hands on her hips. “I know. It’s so disappointing. I’d always thought more of him than that.” 

You roll your eyes in as big a circle as you can. Talking this through with them won’t remove the pit of anxiety that you develope right between your ribcage and your   
heart whenever Roxy comes up. In fact, it will only make it larger. The two of them are the biggest romantic disasters you’ve seen walking. “Alright, guys, let’s talk about something else now.”

“Why?” Jade is annoyingly persistent. And she knows just how far she can push you before you start to get mad. 

“Because--” You start, but Jake cuts you off. 

“Listen here, it doesn’t take much. Just let her know you’re interested.” Jake pulls himself up to the top of the rock and dusts off his fingers. The two of them are quite the pair. Jade even has ankle warmers, and Jake’s adventure shirt flows out heroically behind him. Sometimes you feel small and left out in your own family, in your cargo shorts and obsolete band shirt. 

“What?” You bite back the feeling as you start on the rock yourself, pressing your bare toes against the stone. Your upper arms scream as you pull yourself upwards. You don’t really do much adventure-action these days. You just sort of float to wherever you need to be. 

“She’s not going to make the first move because she’s Rolal, and that means she’s permanently insecure, the poor dear.” Jake offers you a hand and you take it. You take his other hand, too, and he pulls you all the way up. “So, either you’re going to ask her out, or you’re going to do something to establish romantic thinking, which she will acknowledge favorably, and then you’ll ask her out.” 

You groan, and flop back on the dirt, pine needles poking the side of your face, and put your hands over your face. “I know.” 

“Good man.” Jake pats you twice on the stomach. “You’re already smitten, it won’t be that hard.”

“Can you not use that word?” You angle yourself to a sitting position, resting on your elbows. 

“Smitten?”

“Yeah, it makes me feel sort of squirmy on the inside.” 

Jake rolls his eyes at you. “It’s not my fault you’re so depraved that you think all of my language is foul.” 

“I don’t think it’s foul, it’s just weird. Like, calling Rose and Kanaya lovers--”

“They are! Do you have a problem with their relationship?”

“No! Not at all. It’s just that--”

“The word lovers is kinda gross,” Jade finishes your sentence for you, biting at her fingernails. “And it makes everyone uncomfortable.” 

Jake shakes his head at the two of you. “This is why the two of you will never find lovers.” 

“Ugh, you’re so old!” Jade sits down next to you in a huff. The two of you share a conspiratorial look. 

“It’s true. The two of you must learn the language of romance.” Jake raises his hand above his head and stares out into the distance dramatically, and you and Jade laugh. 

When he looks back over his shoulder, a smile is twisting his lips. “You must tango in the night,” he says, letting his voice deepen and go growly. “And kiss in the moonlight.” 

You and Jade laugh harder, until your sides ache. Then there are times like these, when your family is everything you could have ever wanted, that blot out all the other times. 

The three of you wind up not adventuring further. You watch the sun set from where you are, through the trees. You can sort of see your camp down below, a collection of lights down past the waterfall. 

“I wonder how they’re all getting on without us,” Jade says, pulling her knees up under her chin. 

“They’ve probably all found some poisonous berry and gorged themselves on it, and when we get back, we’ll need to bury their corpses,” Jake replies bitterly. You get the sense that he’s disillusioned at the overall lack of preparedness of their camping colleagues. 

Jade is the next one to break the silence, after a couple of minutes. “I could talk to Roxy, if you want. Test the waters. See if she’s even interested.” 

You shrug. “Nah. She’s not that stupid. She knows we talk about everything.” 

Jade nods. “Yeah. Stupid friendship.” 

You hit her in the knee, and she laughs. 

Jake stands up, and brushes off his butt. “We should head back, before it gets too dark to see.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” you say, as he shimmies down the rock, “but you make a very useful flashlight.” He flips out off when he reaches the ground. 

Jade stands up and backs up a few paces, taking a flying leap out, off the rock. She hangs in the air for a minute before falling to the ground on all fours. Jake claps sardonically for her as you let yourself fall off the rock, floating for just a second before you land. 

Halfway down the mountain, Jade turns to you again. “I dare you to kiss her.” 

“I’m sorry?” 

“Kiss her.” She touches her mouth, her eyes wide and solemn. “On her lips. With your lips.”

“Oh, come on!” 

Jake runs into you from behind, his shoulder smacking into yours. “I say, do it.”

“No, guys, come on, that doesn’t feel right.” You anchor yourself to a tree and step cautiously down a decline. “You don’t just kiss someone for laughs.” 

“Not for laughs,” Jade says, “For love.” 

“Or, to prove to her that you can do it,” Jake says, nodding. 

“Come on!” Jade says reaching out to touch the top of your head. “A declaration of intentions.” 

You shake them off you, and go on downwards. You can’t escape the idea, though. It follows you down the mountain, the head of an arrow embedded in your heart. To kiss her. Even just once.


	12. Roxy

You watch them as they come back down the mountain. Jade is draped over John’s back, and Jake leads them, a little in front. John always looks so happy. It breaks your heart. You bite your bottom lip and shove the fire with your firestick. 

While they were gone, Rezi broke out the marshmallows (you wonder how many packs of those fucking things got hauled up this damn mountains), and now your brother is experimenting with their flammability. Callie laughs, holding the burning sugar in her bare palms. You try to focus on them, but you can’t help staring at the Harlybertcrocklishes. At John. 

He sits down next to you, eventually, and slings an arm around your shoulder. The three of them are laughing, all laughing, and the warm sound brings the night in tighter around your shoulder. Everything is golden and smokey in the fire, and you lean your head on his shoulder. His fingers tighten against your bare skin, or maybe that’s just your imagination. 

Jade jostles John on his other side, but you don’t get what it’s about. You feel like it might be about you, from the way Jake’s teeth gleam in the firelight, but you decide you don’t want to know. You don’t want to know, you don’t want to analyze, you just want to sit here. Where everything’s good. 

Callie sits at your feet and sticks her skewer into the fire. “I’m going to make the perfect marshmallow,” she says, and it’s not really clear who she’s talking to. 

“That’s a pretty big challenge to take on.” John answers, and his voice rumbles through your bones. 

“Nah, it’s not. I just need to make it golden brown on all sides,” she takes it out of the fire and looks at it, checking all sides, “and make sure that it doesn’t burn up, like Dave’s stupid ones.”

“Your ones are stupid,” Dave shoots back. He’s sitting against Rezi’s legs, studying his own dessert carefully. Rezi had been wandering a bit too closer to the fire, previously, and now she couldn’t move from the knees down, which was probably for the best. 

“Your face is stupid,” you say, and Dave flips you off. 

Callie laughs, and examines her marshmallow again. 

“If you don’t keep it in the fire, it’s not going to cook,” Jake says. He’s brought out the fixings for s’mores, cheap chocolate catchpaed at a negative value, and graham crackers made up with the surplus. 

“I know!” Callie shakes her head at him. “I don’t even want to eat all that junk.” 

John laughs, and adjusts you against his side. You elbow him intentionally as you sit up and arrange yourself so that your back is pressing against his side. His arm hesitates for a second, but not for more, before he tucks it around your stomach and pulls you closer to him. 

You can feel him intentionally not looking at you, not breathing in your direction, not breathing at all. The air around him pauses in eddies and swirls and it tugs your hair in all different directions. You try to stop smiling. 

“Look!” Callie turns around, delighted, her prize on the end of the stick. “I got a perfect one, John!” 

He laughs, and touches the top of her head with his finger. Benediction. “Your prize is that you get to eat it, now.” 

“Yeah, well, mine is better, so, suck on that.” Dave takes his stick out of the fire, and twirls it in their general direction. Terezi laughs absently, chewing noisily on a graham cracker. 

“Like hell it is!” Jade reaches up and over Callie’s head, her hand wrapping around the end of Dave’s stick. She screams, more in shock than pain, as her hand closes around the burning sugar, and she staggers back from the fire. “Fuck you David!” She yells, laughing, and the rest of you laugh too. When you’re done, you smile, tucking your knees up underneath you. Your face hurts at the corners, and around the edges. This is a good place. And you never want to leave. 

 

You’ve only planned to stay three mornings. Hike back on the fourth. So when the second morning dawns, sterile in the way spring mornings are, adrenaline mixes with desperation. You can feel the minutes of the day slipping by you, like sand down an hour glass. You feel like Jake, you feel like you need to get up and *do* something, you feel a strange tightness on the inside of your skin that makes you want to scream. 

Usually, when you feel like this, you find the shittiest loud music you can and play it until you can’t think anymore. But you’re in the fucking woods, without your music or your speakers, so you kick Jade until she flips you off and rolls over. You think about waking up Callie, too, but she looks like such an angel when she’s asleep, so you leave the tent.

Maybe not all of this anciness is related to your mountain adventure. But you’re not willing to analyze your feelings right now. 

You crawl out into the clearing on all fours, your pajama boxers tucked up around your thighs. Completely undignified. But you feel primed and explosive. Ready for something new. You stand up and brush yourself off, and look around. 

John’s sitting there, by himself, in front of the fire. He looks half asleep. A hoodie is tucked around him, but you don’t think that it’s covering him the way it’s supposed to. The sleeves flop uselessly against his side. The fire is quite high, though, so that can’t mean he’s been out here all night. Still vibrating, you walk over to him and sit down. 

“You awake?” You poke him in the side of the face and he blinks, hard. 

“Yeah, sorry. Still here.” He smiles sheepishly, and pushes the hood back from his face. The whole jacket falls to the ground, and he looks around for it, stunned. You pick it up off the ground and hand it to him, and he stares at you like you’ve just conjured it. 

“If you’re sleepy, why don’t you go back to bed?” You throw the hoodie around his back like a cape, and then tie it in the front, completing his suburban-mom look. 

He shakes his head and looks away, back into the fire. “I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about--things too much. You know?” 

You nod. “Yeah, I have so much energy. I feel like setting something on fire or something.” 

He laughs, and his face twists up. “I have sort of the opposite. Just--” he pauses and rubs the bottom of his face. You notice he has something of stubble. It makes him look older, and all drawn out. 

“Sadness thinking?” You suggest. 

He nods. “Everything is all slow and sticky inside my chest.” You touch his shoulder, lightly, and he looks over at you. He clears his throat and looks down into the fire. “But, what were you thinking about getting up to?” 

“I don’t know. I guess blowing stuff up is a little impractical.” You shake your head in fake disappointment.

“And, I think Jake would kill you,” he elbows you, and you laugh. 

“No, but, really. What are we going to do today?"


	13. John

“Arson should be considered more widely as a way to alleviate boredom,” Dave says, throwing another branch onto the bonfire. “I’m finding this really enjoyable.”

Roxy laughs and throws a branch in next to his. The pine sap pops and shrieks as the branch hits. Sparks fly, landing on the dry grass around you. You bite your lip as you watch them, and fight back the impulse to stomp them out. Your feet are bare, anyways. 

Jake has informed you that what you’re doing is called a ‘controlled burn.’ “It’s great for the environment,” he’d said enthusiastically when you first approached him about the idea, “Really great for the soil.” 

“Oh, so, you’ve done one before?” You wanted to do something for Roxy, and if she wanted explosions, you’d give her the next best thing. 

“Oh, no, never, I would never risk a fire so close to my home.” Jake shook his head and laughed. “But I’ve read all about them, so don’t worry.” 

“Right.” You’d nodded slowly, and then gone to get debris from the forest. You didn’t want this to be like the campfires you’d had every night. You wanted this to be bigger. Really heartstopping. Just, a really big gesture of friendship. Not romance. You mean, you wouldn’t have argued if she’d wanted to interpret it that way? But friendship was good too. 

You got extra pinecones, because they sounded like firecrackers when they burned. And when you got home, you’d catchpa her some actual fireworks. Well, not her. Just. The whole family. The whole city. It would be a celebration of something. 

She, Jade, Callie, and Rezi had gone down to the lake for sunbathing. You remembered sunbathing girls on other planets in other realities and decided not to join them.

“Me?” Dave asked, running his hand down his pale chest. “With my complexion?” The little sun he’d got on the way up here had given him freckles, which stood out in sharp relief against the rest of his milky-white body. 

“What about you, John?” Roxy put her hands on her hips as she looked at you, her mouth twisting downward. 

You’d shaken your head and bent down to look at an ant mound. You knew that the two of you were supposed to have just undergone some sort of emotional bonding session, and you were a gentleman, goddammit! But you couldn’t look at her without looking at the vibrant pink of her bikini in both areas, and that didn’t seem very gentlemanly of you at all. 

“Nice bathing suit,” Jake had supplied helpfully, chewing on a pop tart that he’d skewered and cooked over the fire. “It’s very pink.” 

“Oh, fuck off, Jacob.” She’d flounced off down the hill to sunbathe, though you could hear the girls’ laughter throughout the forest, so you didn’t think that they were getting much of anything done. 

The pile of logs you, Jake, and Dave had managed to collect in the interim was relatively huge. It almost came to the top of Dave’s head. He climbed up before you’d doused it in gasoline and lit it, waving his hands around his head. “I’m KingoftheWooooorld! Look at me, Kate!” 

“That’s not even the characters name,” Jake said, grabbing onto his ankle and yanking him softly. “Her name is Rose.” 

“Fucking nerd,” Dave said amicably, and slide down the pile on his butt. Logs fell off with him, and you picked them up and threw them back onto the pile. “That movie doesn’t even exist any more. I hope it doesn’t exist any more.” He wriggled himself back into the pile, and leaned his head back on the logs, like he was settling himself down in a throne. “Holy shit, this means we get to make our own cultural references now. Do you know what a boon that is?” 

“David, you’re making my brother’s gesture difficult,” Jake shook his head and pulled Dave to his feet. You don’t think you could have helped the fact that you blushed and looked away. “Look at all this mess you’re making!” 

“Gesture?” Dave raised his eyebrows. 

“Out of my fucking pile,” You said, hoisting the canister of gasoline menacingly. Dave smiled, his teeth gleaming wickedly “It’s just--a pile. Not a pile for fucking on. It doesn't matter, just move your ass!” 

You set it on fire after dinner. For a more dramatic effect, you guess, and by that time it had sort of stopped being a controlled burn and just started being a crazy ass bonfire. It was worth it, though, to see how much Roxy smiled. 

“Wait, wait, can I be the one to light it?” You laughed and willingly handed over the box of matches. She misses the first one, but the second one catches and she laughs as the tiny flame dances right over her fingertips. She looks at you again, and raises one eyebrow, asking permission. You nod, and she flicks it towards the pile. 

All seven of you watch the spark of light fly towards the flammable pile of wood, and you watch until it lands, tucking itself neatly into a crevice. 

“That was anticlimactic,” Dave says, his arms crossed over his chest. 

Terezi leans on his shoulder. “What the fuck is happening guys. I don’t feel fire. Why are we just standing here?” 

“It didn’t catch on fire,” Dave is impatient, and you can feel that Roxy is too, vibrating with tension through her arms and her legs. “That’s why it’s anticlimactic.” 

“Sometimes things take time to catch on fire,” Callie says sagely. “It has to get all warm inside and ready to burn.” 

“Well, another one wouldn’t hurt, right?” Jade takes the box from Roxy and lights another match but just as hers catches, the fire lights. Flames race from the base to the top of the pyramid, electric. Roxy laughs, wild, as it stripes across logs, and explodes in a patchwork of sparks. 

You take out the pinecones and hand one to her. “Grenades,” you say, and you lob one towards the fire. It shrieks and hisses before going off, angrily. 

Her smile is vicious, and you think it might crack her face, as she takes one from you and throws it into the fire. Soon the air is thick with pinecones as everyone gets in on it, and the night is thick with the sound of things burning. 

You think it’s the best night you’ve spent out here, in the middle of a field, with all the stars watching carefully. Roxy loops her arm around you as you walk back to the campsite, the fire dwindling into ashes at probably 3. Callie is draped over your arm, her breath warming up the side of your face. 

In front of you, Jade and Dave loudly discuss whether or not they should catch that frog right there, or if the irony factor would be too incredibly shitty. “Did you do it for me?” Roxy asks. 

“Yeah,” you say, unable to wrap an arm around her shoulder. “Did you enjoy it?” 

“Mmmmmm.” She makes a little noise of contentment into the side of your chest. “More than anything.” 

You kiss her on the forehead before handing over Callie, her hair tickling the bottom of your face. You can’t see in the dark, but you think she blushes. As you tie yourself into your hammock, you tell yourself that this has been a good day. Because it has. And you can’t expect anything more if you aren’t willing to put anything on the line.


	14. Roxy

The third morning. You wake up giddy and happy, pulling a hoodie on over your head. Jade’s slobbering into the pillow, and Callie’s sleeping bag is empty. You’re going to do it today. You’re going to do *something* today. 

Last night, with the fire, you think that’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for you. Fire and shit. You pull on some socks, and then the slippers you’ve been wearing outdoors. At home--not home, not anymore, but where you grew up--you hated winter. You hated the cold, and how the chess people would pushed against your house, looking for warmth. You hated how lonely the snow made you feel, how isolated. How it swallowed up all of your words and all of your footsteps. 

But this year, this home, this cold--you’re looking forward to it. Rose has already hinted at some “Christmas” and “trees” and you think that it’s going to be fucking super. You flip the hood of your hoodie up over your head and step out of the tent. 

Terezi and Dave have their shoulders pressed together as they sat on a log, watching the breakfast fire. Jake is standing over them, staring mulishly into the flames. You sit down, cautiously, across from Dave and Terezi, sliding your hands into your sleeves. “Morning, everyone,” you say, and your voice sounds small. 

“I am so fucking tired,” Dave says, and he sounds it. 

“He just wants his boyfriend,” Terezi says, scrunching up her nose. “He was talking about him in his sleep last night.” 

“Wasn’t!” Dave sounds like he’s protesting just out of duty. 

“You were probably dreaming about him,” Terezi continues, elbowing. Her elbows look pointy and sharp. Dave tucks his head in the crook of her neck. You can’t tell if his eyes are opened or closed, because of his fucking shades, but he looks like he could be trying to go back to bed. Terezi runs a finger down his nose. “You were making all these kissy noises.” 

Dave smiles, and shifts his weight. “It was a pretty hot dream, I admit.” 

“Please shut up,” Jake says tersely, and you don’t know how you’ve forgotten that he has to share a tent with those two. 

You laugh into your sleeve. “Where’s Callie?” 

Dave points into the trees. “She went to wake up John.” 

Jake looks up and nods. “Do you want bacon?” 

“Um, yeah, sure, thank you. That would be great.” You stand up, and brush some mulch of your pajama pants. 

Jake nods and pulls out a rasher of bacon from his supply bag. You’re not sure if you want to know how he refrigerated it, if he even did. 

You leave the three of them as you found them, and go back into the treeline. You don’t think you’ve seen John’s hammock the entire time you’ve been here, but it isn’t hard to find. He’s picked the prettiest spot in the whole campsite, a cliff overlooking the pond area, and Callie’s busy shaking him awake. 

She’s standing in a bright orange sundress, one of Jake’s fishing hats on her head, lures dangling at her shoulders. “John!” She pushes his hammock, and it swings, back and forth, back and forth, into her palms. “John, wake up!” 

You can’t hear anything from him, and you bite your lip as you walk closer. 

“John!” Callie shouts again, and she gives the hammock one final push as it goes limp, all of John’s body mass rushing out of it as he turns into air. “Stop doing this it’s cheating!” Callie shouts, and he reforms over her head. 

He’s not wearing a shirt, just pajama pants, and his hair hangs around his head in a cloud of black. You pull your hood over your head and watch him, as he watches you. You don’t want him to see you staring at his chest or anything embarrassing like that. Not that you would. You hadn’t even thought of it. Not even a little. Not even as you notice the place where his shoulder connects to his torso. 

He turns his head a little, and you realize he doesn’t have his glasses on. You wave a little, and hope that the bright pink hoodie is a big enough tip-off. He nods and smiles slyly, before looking down at Callie, who hasn’t taken her eyes off of him. 

“That’s cheating,” she says, pouting. 

“You punched me!” he protests, “In the stomach!” 

“That’s just part of the game! You’re supposed to get out of the hammock like a normal person. Look,” she grabs some of the canvas material, “How are you going to get it untied from the outside?” 

“Like this, silly.” He drops down next to her and bends down, doing something to the material with his hands. He nods at you over Callie’s head, raising your eyebrows, and you smile back at him, knowing what he has in mind. You can’t help but watch him for a few seconds longer, though, the way he talks to Callie gently. The way kindness comes so naturally to him. 

He moves his fingers once more, and the sides of the hammock fall apart. “I’m magic,” he says, and he wiggles his fingers. 

Callie giggles, just as you swoop in and pick her up around her middle. 

She screams as you heave her up over your shoulder and spin her around, setting her down again suddenly as your arms give out. Falling back against a tree you laugh, and she punches you in the stomach. “I didn’t know it was you! John!” 

John laughs too, and sets down gently besides the two of you. “That’s what you get for waking me up.” He tucks her fisherman’s cap back on top of her head, smoothing his hand over her scalp, and you feel a swell of affection looking at him. 

“Screw you,” she says, pulling the hat down over her ears, and you and John can’t help but to laugh. 

“Did my little sunflower just swear at me?” you tease. “Did my little bug say a bad word?” 

“Oh my god,” Callie says, with all the sass of a pre-teen. “I’m going to eat all the pop tarts before you losers even get back to camp.” She tromps off through the trees, her bright orange dress highlighting her against the underbrush. 

You watch her go back to the fire, and then look at John. He’s standing with his hands on his hips, his hair standing up in all the wrong angles. He’s freckles across his chest, you notice, to match his nose and cheeks, That makes you blush so you look away again. “I’m going to, uh--”

“Oh, you’re fine. Um.” He looks at the ground, the wind kicking up leaves around him. “Shit. Do you see my glasses anywhere?”

“You left them on the ground! Jesus, John, you can’t just leave them--” You kneel on the ground and search through the dirt with your fingers. He stands awkwardly stiff, afraid to move so he won’t crush them. 

“I didn’t expect to be the happening thing this morning,” he says, but the joke falls flat.” 

“Yeah, I know. But still.” You see the glint of glass under an oak leaf and pull his glasses from the ground. “You can’t just be careless with these. How are we supposed to get you home without these? Tie a leash to you, or something?” You stand up and hold them out to him, closer than you had been before. 

He swallows, and reaches out, taking the glasses from you quitely. “Do you think, Roxy--” He stops, stilling, and doesn’t put his glasses on. Instead he stares at you, or at the vague area of the right side of your forehead. 

“Do I think what, sir?” You let a smile spill over onto your face, because this is John. This is the two of you, how it always is. 

“Do you think that you would want to go on a date with me, once we get home? I know that’s a stupid--fuck, I know that’s a stupid thing to say, don’t even answer--” 

Your smile hurts in the best sort of way, and the painful stab of happiness does too. Everything turns pink-hazy for a moment, sliding to the side, before righting itself again. “Yes.” You say. “Yes, I think I would.” And you manage not to blush or stutter once.


	15. Chapter 15

You’re either a fucking idiot or the luckiest man alive. Probably both. Still in the dream-haze of sleep, you pull your shirt on over your head and shove your glasses on your face. She’s left, she’s gone, when you weren’t paying attention. When you were still listening to the beating of your heart against the boney part of your chest.

She said yes? 

Yes. She said yes. 

You smile without biting the inside of your cheek, smiling so hard the muscles in your cheeks hurt, the place where crows’ feet form. You’re not sure you can eat breakfast with your face in this shape.

When you think you’re ready, you drift over to the campsite, incoperal. You don’t think she’s said anything to anyone. You don’t think she’s said anything. She’s just sitting there, her hood up over her hair, staring into the fire. Callie sits next to her, her fingers and eyes dancing as she tells the group someone. 

Jake is cooking bacon. 

You riffle through Roxy’s hair, and she looks up and smiles like she knows it’s you. Her hood falls around her shoulders and she smiles. For you, she smiles. You almost fall out of the air, giddy and impossibly happy. This isn’t how it should have happened. There should have been fireworks and a grand event, or maybe just even candles. But you can’t bring yourself to care.

Jade’s still sleeping in her tent, and you slip through the netting and nestle down next to her, settling into your body. “Hey,” you say, into her ear, “I asked Roxy on a date.” Saying it out loud makes it seem more real, more urgent. Birds kick up in your stomach, anxiety on acid, and you swallow to keep your heart where it belongs. 

Jade groans and readjusts her face against the pillow. “Then why the fuck are you in here talking to me?” 

“I need help,” you say, and you can hear the whine in your voice. “Come on, what do I do now? How do I not embarrass myself any more?” 

She snort laughs and wiggles into her sleeping bag, her ears flicking against her hair. “I don’t know, Johnny. You’re basically a walking ass.” You slap her on the side of the head, and she writhes away, her eyes wide and unfocused without her glasses. “Look,” she says. “Just go out and sit next to her. That will make her fucking world, you know.” 

“Yeah.” You bite your thumbnail and smile. “Where should I take her?’

“Here?” 

“No, when we go home.” You don’t want to take her out on her first date in the forest. Maybe it’s not her first date, maybe it’s only your first. Either way, it’s a first for the two of you and you want to choose a good place, a favorite place. But not a place she’s been to too many times before. Not a place she already has vivid memories of. 

“There’s that ice cream store.” Jade reaches up and pushes your hair behind your ear. “Down the street from the greenhouse?” 

You nod, decisively. “You have a good taste.” 

She laughs and hits you on the arm. “I’ll be out to spy on you lovebirds in a minute. Come on just let me sleep in for five more minutes okay? Rose expects us to work when we get home, and Jake’s getting us up at 5 tomorrow.” 

“The fucker.” You lean back against the cloth of the tent, your head pressing a divot into the fabric. “At least he’s making bacon, though.” 

“Bacon!” Jade sits straight up. “Get out, I need to get dressed.”

You laugh and let yourself spool out, collecting yourself when you’re next to Roxy. Flesh and bone, you impulsively wrap an arm around her waist. She looks at you, startled, and start to pull away, but she smiles big and nestles into your shoulder. 

Dave whoops from the other side of the fire. “Getting a piece of that hot mom action?” he shouts, really loudly, and Roxy turns a funny purple color. You like the way her hair hangs around her shoulders, though, all white. Like a cloud. 

“David, get your fucking head out of the gutter,” Jake says, and he stabs the fire viciously with his fire-tending stick. And that’s all anyone says about the two of you. Except for Callie, who draws hearts in the dirt and wiggles her eyebrow-less forehead suggestively in your direction. 

 

 

Later, you and Roxy go on a walk. You hold her hand, just how you always wanted to, and walk through the forest with both feet on the ground. Her hand is small in yours, small but strong, squeezing your palm soundly. 

“I was going to,” she says after they leave the camp behind. You could feel the rest of your family watching you curiously, but they were going to get used to it. You were going to go on a lot more walks. You were going to do a lot more hand-holding.

“Going to what?” Both of you speak quietly, like any actual noise will wake you out of a dream. 

“Going to ask you out. You know.” She shrugs, quick and perfunctory. “You just beat me to it.” She smiles, mischievously. 

You reach up and touch her lip absentmindedly. She looks at you, her eyes wide, and you take your hand away. You don’t know what you’re allowed to do and what you’re not supposed to do anymore. “Your lips are dry,” you say. “I have some lip balm back at the camp if you want it.” 

“Oh.” Her shoulders relax and her eyes drop to the path in front of you. It’s a little before evening, and the sun is already sinking, casting a golden glow over everything. “Thanks. I’ll probably need it.” She touches her lip, self-conscious. 

“This isn’t a date, you know,” you say, a bit louder. If you can talk over your embarrassment, no one will remember it. 

“It’s not?”

“No,” you shake your head. “I’m going to take you out to Danger’s when we get back. And we’re going to split a Sundae, like they do in the movies.” 

She laughs, tipping back her head. “You’re trying to spoil me, aren’t you?” 

You laugh too. “Of course. I've been plotting up ways to do it since I've met you, you know.” You bump into her shoulder and she stumbles forward, laughing. She clings onto you, though, and that makes everything so much better.


	16. Roxy

You hang with Callie on the walk back, feeling light and helium-filled. “Did you have a nice walk?” Callie asks slyly, insinuating everything that was already there. 

“I did,” you reply. You’ve been asked this at least twenty times by the five members of your party who weren’t explicitly involved in said walk. Eight times by someone who was also ferociously licking your ear. 

You don’t know what the ear licking was about, but you were willing to put up with all of it. And besides, whatever they were doing to John was ten times worse. You’d heard Dave giving him a lecture on the “proper way to treat a lady,” like his gay ass had ever thought about a lady either romantically or sexually, and sprinted off in the opposite direction. 

“Did you kiss him?” 

You toss your hair and smiles. “A lady doesn’t kiss and tell.” Callie stares at you, something akin to hero worship spreading across her face, so you break down. “No, I didn’t. We just hold hands and stuff. It’s nice, okay? Stop being nosy.” 

Callie laugh and dances ahead, her backpack bouncing against her butt. “I like being nosy! If I wasn’t nosy, I wouldn’t know anything.” 

“I would tell you stuff! Just in my own time.” 

“But you wouldn’t tell me all the details.” Callie holds her hands up to her face, tapping her cheekbones with her now-stubby fingernails. “Like how nice he is. And how his lips taste.” 

You feel yourself turning bright red and swat at her head. “Like I would tell you any of that anyways!” 

She laughs and jumps back, her bare feet kicking up leaves and sticks. She makes a heart with her hands and dances away. “You know how much I looooveeee you!” 

“Yeah, damn right I do. Or else something terrible would happen to you, and no one would know it was me!” You wiggle your hands around her face and she laughs and backs away. 

The woods are lovely, but you’re happy to be leaving them. You miss your own bed, your own room, normal food and a normal routine. You miss the rest of your family and showers. Goddamn, you miss showers. You smell like campfire and bug spray and citronella, and you’re pretty sure that half your hair is sticking up in the most unattractive cowlick. 

Speaking of that, you miss mirrors too. 

The world flashes green for a second, and you don’t realize, for a second, that it’s just Jade and not your brain quitting on you. She lands on a root or something, and tumbles forward a couple of steps before regaining her balance. “Hey guys!” She says cheerily, sort of stumbling. “Where are you?” 

“Over here,” you say, and Callie giggles. 

“I don’t know why people think you’re scary,” Callie says. “I’ve never seen you do anything scary in your life!” 

“Thanks,” Jade says, turning around to face the two of you. “You’re always a joy, babe.” 

Callie laughs, and you step forward, linking your arm with Jade’s. “Why did you come all the way back here for a visit?” 

Jade shakes her head, running her hand through her hair. “I don’t know. Everyone’s wayyyy ahead of you guys. Like,” she points vaguely down the path, squinting. “I don’t know. Way ahead.” 

“Thanks for that.” You lean your head on her shoulder, and her hair tickles your cheek. “We took some time cleaning up from lunch.” 

Jade nods. “I saw you. Staring at my brother’s ass.” 

Callie cackles wickedly, and you punch Jade in the shoulder. “I was not!” 

“It’s okay,” Jade says, pushing your hair up over your ear. “Terezi says that his butt looked really nice in those jeans.” 

“Fucking Christ I wasn’t! And she shouldn’t be staring at his butt.” 

Callie intertwines her fingers with yours, and you pull her closer. “You shouldn’t even be jealous,” she says, “Terezi can’t even see his butt.” 

“Oh.” You swallow and nod. “Right.” 

The two of them laugh at you as you stumble through the fading afternoon, a six legged creature linked together with your arms around each other’s necks. Home has never seemed so close. And you’ve never wanted to be there so much, either. 

“What would you do?” Jade says, after a while. “If you could have done anything else in your life, what would you have done?” 

You roll your neck. “I don’t know. I don’t think there would have been a lot else for me. Where I grew up. I would have had to, I don’t know. Learn how to ride a whale or something to get over to Dirk, and he was pretty lame back then.” 

Callie smiles, and worms her way in closer to you. “I’m happy here,” she says, her smile small. “I might have died. Or, turned into a giant seraph without any home. I think that this is the best thing that could have happened to me.” 

You nod, and are surprised to hear Jade laugh. “Man, that makes me feel sort of stupid.” 

“Why?” Callie’s voice is soft in the golden light. 

“Because I wanted to be a botanist. Study Natural Sciences at the University of Hawaii. I had my life mapped out. A little flow chart on my wall. I even,” she took a deep breath and left it out. “Used highlighters, you know? So I could remember things by color.” 

“I don’t know what half of that stuff was,” you say, “Or is. I guess? But that doesn’t make what you wanted any less important. I mean, do you resent the game for happening?” 

Jade pauses a moment, before shaking her head. “Sometimes I do. Sometimes I feel unprepared. And, it takes work to make a place a home. To trick yourself into thinking that it’s a home. But, I’m happy to be going back to it. I guess that makes it home, right?” 

You feel Callie shrug on your other side. “I think it’s hard for everyone. Because I miss--my house. And my brother. And the security in knowing that if I woke up, nothing scary could get me.” 

“Hey!” You make a noise in the back of your throat. “Hey, nothing scary could get you here, either. I know it isn’t the best here, yet. But it’s only been a couple months. And everyone’s still a little nervous. I don’t know. I didn’t know you guys felt this way.” 

“Do you?” Jade’s voice was quiet. “Feel the same way, I mean.” 

You feel the bottom drop out of your stomach before you answer. “I do. This has been really nice though. This trip? And being forced to spend time together?” 

Jade fake shudders, and all of you laugh. “God forbid it, right?” A weight lifts off of you, one completely unrelated to John and that happiness. 

“I don’t really know how to handle family,” you admit, and Jade squeezes your shoulder. 

“I don’t really think any of us know how to,” Jade says softly into your hair. You hadn’t even known that needed to bed said, but you feel so much better now that you’ve said it. As the evening shadows grow longer, and your path through the forest less circuitous, you untangle yourselves and walk single file, to not trip over the ground. 

“I wasn’t even sure he was going to do it,” Jade said after a stretch of silence.” 

“Who wasn’t even going to do what?” You’re walking behind Callie, a steadying hand on her shoulder. 

“Ask you out.” Jade turns around deftly. For all her clumsiness, she possess a certain grace. “John. We dared him.” 

You feel your stomach drop to the pit of your stomach. You hadn’t even known how happy you were, until just then. “A dare?” 

“Oh, oh, Roxy, no--” Jade reaches out her hand to you, but it’s too late. Everything must be written across your face, the sinking, twisting feeling under your ribcage, the stinging pain in the back of your throat. You thought you were wobbling, but no, that was only Callie, her thin fingers wrapping around your wrist. “Roxy, that’s not what I meant,” Jade says quietly. 

But it’s late, too late. You can’t believe you were that much of a fool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I know this isn't what you wanted, but I promise the date chapter will be next! :)


	17. Chapter 17

You feel like Roxy’s been avoiding you, but you can’t pinpoint why. “Nerves, maybe?” Dirk says, not looking up from the television. “She gets pretty worked up over you.” You like that idea. It strokes your ego just a bit too much, puffs up your chest in all the wrong ways. But as you’re waiting for her outside the makeshift ice cream parlour some prospiterians were bribed into creating the idea deflates in your chest, a wilted balloon. 

“She’s not coming, is she?” you ask one of the employees sadly. She doesn’t even nod, just stares at you with her pebbled eyes. You need to learn how to speak their language. 

You stand by the rough wooden picnic bench promising yourself that you’ll go in one more minute, just another minute, you’ll just wait for her one more minute. You’re about to go--or, you’re about to tell yourself that you need to get up and go--when you see her coming towards you, her white hair bobbing around her neck. 

She’s still in her pajamas, and is holding a glass of orange juice. The whole glass is vibrating in her hand. “Rox--” you stand up again, your heart in your throat. “What’s wrong?’ Because something’s wrong. You can feel it in the bottom of your stomach. 

“I just want you to know--” she says, tears coating her voice, “that I’m not your bitch.” 

“I’m--I’m sorry?” 

“I’m not your bitch, I’m not going to go out with you just because you need an ego boost, okay, I’m not a fucking girl friday, and you can’t just have me whenever you want! Oh, look, Roxy’s lonely, let me just ask her out, let’s see how far I can take this! Maybe I can get her in my bed, maybe I could fool her into thinking someone actually gives a shit!” She stomps her leg, her orange juice splashing over the side of her cup. Angry red splotches appeared on the top of her cheekbones. 

“Roxy what--” You reach out to touch her but pull your head back because you don’t know if you’re allowed to do that anymore. “Roxy, what’s wrong?” 

“Jade told me everything.” She wipes her eyes with the back of her wrist. “She told me about the dare, about how you’ve been planning this,” she waved her hand around the picnic bench. The prospeterian woman working in the stand eyes you two warily, her arms folded over her chest. “This date, just to humiliate me?” 

You shake your head, slowly. “I don’t--I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“Fuck off,” Roxy runs her free hand through her hair. “I don’t need this from you anymore. I would have really liked to date you, you know?” She turns around, and you know that it’s almost too late, almost too late. 

“Roxy, no, that’s not what this is.” You fingers slip through her shoulder insubstantially. “Please, listen for a moment?”

She turns around and you can tell that she’s been crying. That this is not the first time this week she has cried. “What?” She’s trying to be angry and fierce, but her voice is too tiny. 

“I didn’t ask you out for a joke. Yeah, Jade and Jake dared me, they did and I’m not going to deny that, but they only did it because I had a crush on you. They dared me to kiss you, actually? And I didn’t take them up on it.” You hope the words you’re saying are the right ones.  
Her face doesn’t soften, but her arms do. The orange juice stops vibrating in her fist. 

“Do you think I’m joking, with all this?” You step back and indicate where you’re standing, the date the two of you were supposed to go on. “Because I’m not, I’m really not. Their dare didn’t mean anything to me.’ 

‘I know that that sounds--wow. Really childish.” You scratch the back of your head sheepishly. She’s still watching you, still staring at you, so you keep talking to fill up the space. “But it wasn’t like that, it wasn’t meant to--make fun of you? It was meant to make fun of me, to tease me for liking you so much and doing nothing about it. And I don’t think of you as someone that I can manipulate, or someone that’s just around to make me feel good. Like, you do make me feel good, but in a--fuck. Fuck.”  
You stop again, and rub your mouth with your hand. “This isn’t a ‘last-girl-on-the-planet’ situation,” you say, finally, her eyes still boring into your forehead. “If I met you where I used to live, I wouldn’t have even talked to you, because you’re so beautiful. I would have just sort of awkwardly watched you in the cafeteria and known your classes but I never would have expected to be able to talk to you. 

‘But you, in this reality, enjoy talking to me, and you’re really funny and you’re nice and for some reason you think I am too? And your hands are really soft and you’re cute . . . So I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to act. I’m--I’m sorry.” You finally shut up, not able to look at her face. 

She makes a little noise, but you still don’t look at her. You hear her glass on the table, and then feel her arms around your neck. “You’re still a fuckass,” she says into your throat, her breath against your skin. “I still hate you.” 

You laugh, low in the bottom of your throat, relief blossoming where there used to be fear. “I know,” you say. “Do you still want to go on a date?” 

She sighs and stands up on her tip-toes, pressing her nose into your collar bones. “I don’t know. I can’t be bought with ice cream, you know.” 

You laugh. “Of course not.” 

“And besides I look like trash. Pissed off trash who only came out of her room to rip you a new one.” 

You press a kiss to the top of her head. “And you sort of smell too. You might want to check that out.” 

She gasps and slaps you lightly on the arm. “Fuck off. Now I’m not going to shower for three whole more days. That’s what you get.” 

The two of you stand there until the prospeterian woman shoos you out, her spindly arms flapping. You go out and sit at the edge of the forest instead, your arms wrapped around each other. Your new home is spread out before you, and as you pull Roxy closer to you, you realize you don’t have to be lonely anymore. 

All you need to do is reach out and ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everybody! Thank you so much for reading this and encouraging me. I know I started off saying that this would be done quickly, but I didn't realize how intense it was going to get! Your comments always made me smile, though, and really brightened my day, so thank you so much for that. 
> 
> I am on tumblr at snowwight.tumblr, if you want to talk or have an idea of something you'd like me to write. I am thinking of doing a coffeeshop AU next? And if you guys have any pairing you want me to write, give me some ideas! 
> 
> Also, I will be adding another part to this around Christmas. Idk just letting you know. Thank you so much, as always, and I am so lucky to have so many people read what I write.


End file.
